A further decline in Form 5s performance

SHARE | Wednesday, 25 February 2015 | By Staff Writer

Botswana Examinations Council (BEC) has finally released the 2014 Botswana General Certificate of Secondary Education results on Tuesday. This year’s results have shown a further downward fall as compared to the 2013 results.According to a statement from BEC there has been a 1.07% decline in the candidates who are awarded 5C’s or better. Statistics shows that this year from the 25 186 candidates from government and government aided schools 5 843 (23.20%) were awarded Grade C or better in 5 syllabi compared to 5 946 (24.27%) in 2013. In 2010 the figures stood at 30.81%. The decrease in performance is not only visible on individual candidates but also in schools. Most of the schools have also shown a decline in performance as compared to the previous period. From the 32 senior secondary schools only five schools have significantly improved their performance from last year. These schools are Mater Spei College, Gaborone SSS, Masunga SSS, Nata SSS, and Francistown SSS. According to the summary of the results, Shashe River School and Mmadinare SSS experienced the greatest decline in performance to record 16.59% and 18.67% respectively. The schools that also have dropped in their performance include Lobatse SSS, Moshupa SSS, Naledi SSS, Matshekge Hill SSS, and Good Hope SSS. Once again Shakawe SSS has recorded the lowest performance of 6.99%.In 2014, the total number of candidates who set for the BGCSE examinations has seen an increase of 9.73% from 34 069 in 2013 to 37 384. The increase has been largely attributed to the Back-to-School candidates who increased drastically. However, of the 19 631 grades awarded to the back-to-school candidates only 1 124 were credits. These included only two A* grades, 24 A grades, 87 B grades and 1011 C grades. Back-to-School programme since raised eyebrows as most of its candidates seem not to be doing very well. During the 2014 Junior Certificate results only 56 candidates passed with credits from the total of 1495 who registered for JC.